Pan-Flu Drills

2007 Pandemic Influenza Drills

Four drill templates were designed for local health departments to exercise critical functional areas identified by PHSI and ISDH. These drills are composed of a series of exercises and activities, and their objectives are outlined below.

Obtaining/Issuing Isolation or Quarantine Order

  • Outline the steps, including key personnel identification, necessary to issue an immediate Order and to obtain an Emergency Order for isolation quarantine
  • Establish a baseline for the amount of time it takes to successfully obtain an Immediate Order and an Emergency Order
  • Delineate a plan for meeting the local health department’s legal obligations when employing isolation quarantine

Crisis Communication System

  • Record the time necessary to establish contact with the key leaders of the identified special populations within the county
  • Record and practice communication protocol for the delivery and receipt of an IHAN message
  • Identify and record the Decision Making Team committee members and meeting start and ending times
  • Record the time necessary to establish communication with the identified media and partners/stakeholders
  • Design public and official briefs for the identified media and special populations
  • Test and validate that the briefs were sent and received using a low-tech communications protocol for text messaging
  • Measure the time to disseminate to the public information designed to gain public confidence and support

Decision Making Team: School Closure

  • Identify, notify, and physically or electronically assemble all members of the Decision Making Team
  • Document the time from notification to physical or electronic assembly of the Decision Making Team
  • Identify and review local health department policy that identifies the trigger point when public health authority will recommend school closure
  • Document the amount of time it takes to determine the jurisdictional case count level such that the Decision Making Team can make a decision to close schools or not
  • Exercise procedure to close schools when public health authority issues school closure order

Medical Evaluation for Isolation and Quarantine

  • Delineate the amount of time from the point that an individual is detained for medical evaluation to the time that the public health authorities make a determination to isolate such an individual
  • Verify the criteria used to determine possible infection with a novel influenza virus
  • Ensure all local health care providers have standard clinical guidelines for diagnosis of pandemic influenza
  • Validate the process for hospitalizing and isolating persons possibly infected with a novel influenza virus and for sending their specimens to ISDH and/or CDC
  • Establish that all local infection control practitioners have an isolation policy in place for novel influenza and a mechanism for alerting the local health departments when such action is taken
  • Confirm mechanism(s) for alerting local health care providers of new developments in the diagnosis and treatment of persons with possible pandemic influenza.